What's an "un-made up road" in terms of car hire insurance?

What's an "un-made up road" in terms of car hire insurance? - Recruitment Lettering Text on Black Background

I'm checking the terms and conditions for various car hire insurance/excess coverage policies and I see a lot of lines like this one (this one from http://www.insurance4carhire.com):

We will not reimburse Your Excess or any financial loss or expense in the following circumstances: ...

6.13 Where Damage is the result of driving off-road, or on an un-made up road, or a road which is not designated as a public thoroughfare.

I can't find any definition of these. I'm planning on driving in South Africa and Lesotho and while I'm not planning on going off road, it'll be impossible to avoid some pretty poor quality roads.

Is there any standard definition of this? Would it include an official road, marked on maps, that is in a poor state of repair, or perhaps one that was never paved or sealed?


This company is a UK one who serve worldwide, there seems to be a UK definition of "unadopted road" as:

‘Unadopted’ roads are those roads not maintained by a highway authority as defined by Highways Act 1980. The description of such roads covers a wide range of circumstances.

...but that could well be an unrelated term more in the context of town planning than anything else. I can't find any obvious official definition of "unmade-up road".



Best Answer

According to the Free Dictionary, for made-up:

  1. (Civil Engineering) (of a road) surfaced with asphalt, concrete, etc

Also (thanks to @user568458) from Collins:

  1. (of a road) surfaced with asphalt, concrete, etc



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What is car hire excess waiver?

Excess Insurance Explained. Excess insurance, also known as excess waiver insurance and car hire excess insurance, is an optional insurance policy that protects you against any excess charges you may incur in the event your hire car is damaged or stolen.

What is VRRF in car hire?

VRRF stands for 'Vehicle Registration Recovery Fee'. This is an additional daily charge and is the cost of registering and licencing the vehicle.



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More answers regarding what's an "un-made up road" in terms of car hire insurance?

Answer 2

In Australia we don't say "unmade up road" we just say "unmade road".

Assuming there isn't a technical rather than just a dialectal difference, our classier way to say that is "unsealed road".

And the less classy way to say it is "dirt road".

I feel I'm only making a very slight risk by assuming it's the same in the UK.

Answer 3

In Africa, the term seems to apply to dirt roads, made from the surface of the land through which it passes, as well as those with gravel. Here's an example in Namibia, courtesy of Alamy stock photos.enter image description here

Answer 4

This answer is along the same lines as the other answers, but wanted to add my experience as we came across a similar thing whilst renting in New Zealand. It literally meant any road that didn't have tarmac. New Zealand has quite a few gravel roads and these were what they meant.

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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